lingüíst Lit. n.14 Santiago 2003
doi: 10.4067/S0716-58112003001400003
Literature and Linguistics No. 14
The place no limits Donoso Joseph
: a re-reading from the float of Walter Benjamin
Nelson Rodríguez A.
Universidad Católica Cardenal Raúl Silva Henríquez
"I have the quiet, I have the safety of others in me, but somehow
turned upside down"
(F. Kafka )
Summary
The following work is a study that tries to build a re-reading the novel by Jose Donoso The place no limits , from analysis and reflection that the German philosopher Walter Benjamin, performs on the problem of allegory.
The allegory is understood in three senses. The first includes the allegory as history, as what happens. The second is a list of history "which has been", the past is history, as "ruin." The third time the trauerspiel, which is the staging of history, as the scene of death.
These three elements will allow us to open the re-reading by the many carried out, to understand the work of Donovan, as history, our own, that of Chile, either. The discussion, we must start from this article, is the ability to understand literature as read to us from the ruin and death that life has.
Keywords: Jose Donoso - allegorical discourse - Walter Benjamin
Abstract
The Following work is to study, That Attempts to construct a re-reading to the novel written by José Donoso The place no limits (The Place Without Boundaries), based on the analysis and reflection that the German philosopher Walter Benjamin develops concerning the problem of Allegory.
Allegory is dealt with in three connotations. The first conceives Allegory as (the story) history itself, as "that which happens". The second is a relationship of (the story) history with "what has been", the past that (the story) history has, such as "the ruin". The third is made up by the trauerspiel, which is the staging of (the story) history, the death scene for example. These three elements will allow us to open the re-reading, due to the many carried out, to understand the work of Donoso, as (the story) history itself, ours, that of Chile's, or any other. The discussion, That We Should start is this article from The Possibility to Understand literature as 'us reading ourselves', from the ruin and the scent of death That life has.
Keywords: Jose Donoso - allegoric Discourse - Walter Benjamin
1. Introduction
The gregarious habit drives really believe that calling things by their name. It warns Martín Hopenhayn, in his book Why Kafka? Power, bad conscience and literature? He adds: "this way of understanding what is the truth, just the possibility of being an adaptation of a concept of the thing " (9). This definition is supported by old concepts, today opens its doors to undertake the task concerns the search for truth those who live on roads that are in the gulf, where the existence is possible, and properly appointed. Similarly, those who have accepted the way of literature and writing, have sought to discover and report the reality surpassing until that other reality, which exists in itself.
This is why we have chosen the novel The place no limits, because this is home to the notion of truth as search and unveiling. José Donoso's novel immerses us in the reflection on the human, discovering that in the heart of it, far from existing drive or sense, there are problems, and dissolved worlds dissolve, decay, sorrow, pain and ruin, the same situations are at the heart of our culture, our history and identity.
To achieve the purposes presented in our motivations, we wanted this article had two great moments we will need to arrest.
The first time is a reading the German philosopher Walter Benjamin, who has his work The origin of German Baroque drama, gives us clear insight into how to interpret the novel by Jose Donoso, allegorical perspective. The philosopher has three important elements from an approach to what is understood by allegory. First, it shows the dialectical tension between the symbol and meaning, that is, a reality that retracts itself and another. The second shows a view of history as a continuous accumulation of debris, making the human face a skull. The last element describes the category of trauerspiel, which is the staging of all history as a story of death.
The second moment is one reading to The place no limits, from the elements considered in the chapter on allegory. Here we show humility, reading, another reading of previously read and produced around Donoso. This is possible only from the allegory, as the heart of the story is the heart of the allegory, it is a problem, ie, a distribution of relevant issues, no center, but always offsets, series with from one to another, claudication of presence and absence of excess and defect. These are the arguments why it is necessary to hold to the aforementioned novel by José Donoso, read, re-read it, transgress, violating.
2. Towards a definition of allegory
For the definition of allegory have preferred the reading of the work The Origin of German Baroque drama, the German philosopher Walter Benjamin. This book is a study in poetic, narrative and drama of the seventeenth century. From them Walter Benjamin reflects on the similarities that have these with the formation of the same German history. The relationship between the various writings and training of German history is possible based on the concept that the essayist named as allegory.
Allegory is a concept or a category when depth becomes a reality, that is, the allegory is far from being an abstraction of reality, it is a way of understanding, a way of discovering . And if the allegory has the ability to interpret reality is that "she has in itself the capacity for expression, as does the language and writing itself" ( 155), which do not have other concepts.
Walter Benjamin establishes three elements to explain the allegory. The first presents the dialectical tension between the sign and significance. Until then, the symbol was understood as something that man must interpret for the completion of his being. Therefore, there was a direct line between what man is and what it should be. One speaks of a claim to all of the symbol with respect to human life, that is, the man reaches its fullness, its unity and totality, from the command.
An explanation bounded on the symbol, delivering the philosopher Hans Georg Gadamer, in his News beauty. This posits that the word symbol derives from the Greek language and means of the memory board, as a sign or a registration is consistent with what is remembered. Thus, the experience of the symbolic allows a man to symbol "is presented as a fragment of being that promises to complement an integral whole which corresponds to the" (85).
What Gadamer seeks to explain is that the symbol is something that is missing man to understand in its entirety. Thus, the symbol "ensures our growth in the essence of our existence" (90). In conclusion, The symbol represents the real possibility of man to find what transcends it. Thus the symbol is like a reference to supplement what man lacks of being, meaning and significance.
Contrary to this, Benjamin defines allegory as the dismantling of a unit then "in the baroque allegory is extinguished the false appearance of totality" ( 176). Thus, the meaning, not a continuation of the sign, let alone a whole. Therefore, man is not an end in the symbol, because from an allegory the meaning of human life and existence itself is broken. This does not mean that man is denied any possibility of transcendence, but it transcends from an experience of denial.
Allegory, to prove a negative experience, let the man in the possibility of denying what his own being and identity of the other, as allegory "is a pure human disintegration of the entire "( 176). Thus, the fate of all experience is stirred in the possibility of being and not being in the same way as "stirring allegorical movement dialectically into an abyss" (158). More generally, the allegory is from a constant mismatch between being and seeming, between expression and content, between part and whole, between the symbol and meaning.
If we fix our gaze on the work of José Donoso Place unlimited and, in particular the character of Manuela, what happens understand dialectical tension between the symbol and meaning. The front of his daughter Manuela Japonesita hesitation of his paternity, that is, to be the man Manuel González Astica. Manuela to appoint our first image or symbolic reference is Manuel González. But is he who hesitates in this unit between them, by prohibiting naming his daughter as a father:
"What a dad!. Do not make me laugh, please see that I have chapped lips and it hurts when I laugh ... Dad. Leave me alone, dad anyone. Manuela no more, which can dance the night until dawn and have a laugh at a room full of drunks. "(105-106).
Manuel González nobody wants to be father and denies its identity, that is, denies his masculinity and paternity, granting women a condition that does not belong: "Leave me alone," replied her daughter. But this condition does not let her unable to transcend, for from its new status claims to be the only one who can dance till dawn to amuse a roomful of drunks.
To better understand the allegory, Walter Benjamin offers us understand from their particular vision of history. This is the second element that the philosopher gives the reflection of the allegory. Since the break with the symbolic, the allegory here undertakes its relationship with the experience and history. If the allegory is a dialectical process and abysmal markedly, will be closely linked with the development of history, but since its dark side. In the words of Benjamin, while that the entire symbol is revealed as transcendence and redemption, in allegory reveals history as a petrified primordial landscape. This means that everything is as painful history, and failed intespectivo results in a face but a face is a skull. What is History is made by man in the world and time. The allegory is then the expression of the repeated failure of man to rediscover the grace, the redemption that has been denied.
According to Walter Benjamin, are two features that make it possible to understand history from the allegory. First, history is revealed primarily as last man. What was relevant as it acquires, the place where the man looks to redeem what has lived. The second feature is to look at the history that is embodied in a man, shown as a skull.
In the allegory the man is only subject of history when confronted with his past. In an attempt to redeem it, it returns to a state of ruin. The quotation from Walter Benjamin in his work The dialectic of suspense. Fragments on the History is illuminating:
"And this is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls on their feet. Would like to stay and raise the dead and what has been smashed. But blowing from Paradise a hurricane that has got caught in his wings as strong an angel can not close them. This storm irresistibly pushes it forward, which turns its back, while the pile of debris before him grows to the sky "( 54).
In the allegory each man must understand its history from the past. But this past has the characteristic of being a painful past, gloomy and dilapidated. The man who discovered its history back a heap of ruins that awakened in him the undeniable ability to redeem them. The same applies to the Manuela to look at the past. This is found to be dilapidated pilgrim, fleeing from one place to another, being expelled from everywhere trying to redeem his story:
"In a whorehouse to another. Since I was from memory ... a house in another, ever since it kicked out of school when he was caught with another boy and did not dare to get home because his dad was with a huge whip, with coming to draw blood to the horses when falling, and then went to the house of a lady who taught English dance. And then she threw him out, and others, always from house to house, without a five pockets, nowhere to hide and rest ... "(84).
All items Manuela make your life a ruin one upon another. But despite this past dilapidated, she tries to redeem this situation by accepting the proposal made by Don Alejandro Cruz to the Japanese. The challenge was to make "a plastic box" in which the Japanese and Manuela offer people the act sexual. La Manuela, despite refusing at first, thinks about his future, the only way to redeem his past "Total. It was a while. Chickpeas I do not like but when there is more to eat ... total. Owns a . Nobody is going to kick me out ... and there is hope for a wild and ugly like me " (85).
Manuela But by accepting the bet, succeeded in his attempt to redeem his past, he wrote a new ruin in its history, in life, as will be marked by fatherhood and the Japonesita enjendrará .
's future drove him back again this character "now at forty you are loosing teeth and becomes fearful of splashing when sneezing" ( 85). Manuela's face can not be other than a new abandonment. A face that begins to lose the human face into a skull. The citation of the philosopher in The Origin of German Baroque drama , warns this reality:
"Everything has to intespestivo history of painful, failed, results in a face; or rather, in a skull in this picture ... you (the more subject to nature) is fully expressed as enigma, not only the condition of human existence in general, but also the historical biography of an individual " (159).
's face became a skull is the second property suggests that Walter Benjamin to understand the story from the Allegory. The story for men is the path of this so painful that she has so failed that she shows. History will find, on signs of decay, sadness, and above all, in ruins. It Thus, man becomes the subject of his story of death that she has, then from the condition of skull man finds his way, as regards its historical biographical try individual tracks from the ruins. Manuela is a being on the verge of death, a stick (a skull) that only takes expression from dancing transvestite who is from an experience of negativity.
The core of the allegorical vision in Baroque exposure history, as history of the sufferings of the world, becomes significant since the phases of its decline: "more meaning, more subject to death it is the death that digs deeper into the rugged line of demarcation between man and its significance "( 159). The experience of death as an experience of Denial allows us to understand the history of man's individuality and not from a general subject to which things happen, or a concept or idea. The man in his concrete is a skull from the experience of death that it makes in its history.
reverse scene of the plastic box is the night dancing the English Manuela dressed in the ruined room of the brothel. This action would return (apparently) the grace to its ruinous state. However, downloading of this event hope that transmits the public, it also brings misery and death: Manuela will be beaten, raped, abandoned. So, once again shines the skull; but this time at maximum brightness.
From the experience of man to his death, we reach the third element that Walter Benjamin argued finished his conception of allegory. This new category is the trauerspiel understood as a funeral scene (German Baroque), which captures all that is history of fatal and ruinous, considering the man as a creature either, thrown into the world as a being. The trauerspiel
"content is the very life of men in his time facing death" (47).
For Walter Benjamin essentially allegorical vision as trauerspiel is shown in history as the sufferings of an individual. Is the scene that opens up to man in his denial deeper, showing aware of his new ruin, in extreme melancholy by his paradise lost.
The most revealing scene in The place no limits this deadly scenario in which man discovers in his new ruin is the end of "plastic box" when the bet made by Don Alejo is fulfilled. At that time the feeling Manuela he has lost. His identity is far from what he had done:
"But Japan would never swear, by God how disgusting, swear, members, of course, but this is not anymore because now there is that you but now that I am needing so much, and I would draw from the corner of the house "(105).
Thus Manuela wants to be for the Japanese that you (male, if Manuel Gonzalez), then, since I that yearning, that is, as Manuela, is its maximum redemption while the actual experience of death. Thus, the allegory from the trauerspiel becomes a privileged model for understanding our lives, from the painful attempt to continue disjointed moments and heterogeneous. The trauerspiel suggests more radically. Expose us to life as exposing a gap: that is the real experience of death. Living, therefore, is to leave that be for every man can understand. To live is to take self-exile tear of their own identity, to an empty space in a failed attempt at redemption that, paradoxically, constitutes us as subjects.
In case of Manuela, who renounce their masculinity to engrossed in a vacuum, which is as Manuela. However, in reality, their experience is a constant tension between his fatherhood (he has fathered Japonesita) and its otherness. So towards the end of the novel, when he flees in terror from the attack of Octavio and Pancho, Manuela also discover, terrified, in their ruin last unredeemed: being Manuel.
To conclude, we will raise an existential relationship between the position of Walter Benjamin when he wrote about the allegory and the circumstances of production and reception of this novel by José Donoso.
Walter Benjamin begins his study of German baroque allegory in 1916, finishing the first draft in 1925, being published in 1927 and 1928. The situation is this: the author begins his work in full First World War and after the war ends. The men then tried to redeem his ashes from the same dust. Thus, it is no coincidence that their study has been undertaken the German Baroque allegory, as the Baroque, the author, had been misinterpreted by the schools of classical symbolism, understanding just what the man will be missing. But the allegory describes a privileged model for understanding our lives Inside History: deciphering an awkward during moments of meaning, which is the painful attempt to restore continuity to unconnected and heterogeneous moments. The German Baroque offered, from allegory, a way of interpreting the contemporary situation in which the philosopher was inserted.
is not difficult then to understand how our José Donoso he writes Place unlimited. Chile, third-world country located within South America, which attempts aguerridamente, catch up on what is now the world powers, Chile, a country torn between pain and hope of those who, on the one hand, trying to be modern and other uprooted people living in poverty. This is where Manuel Gonzalez Astica stands, uncertain past poor man who violates his life and identity to give a new face, the same identity that becomes skull. Manuel Gonzalez is Manuela, an angel who tries to return the lost meaning to their existence, an angel who tries to make a heaven in hell full of fragments and losses.
Thus, if the German Baroque allegory Benjamin served to understand the situation of men at that time, then it is possible to read The place without limits from allegory to understand the historical, cultural and social development in which there are men in this country, which at times becomes allegorical.
speaking of a country with allegorical features, I mean that the same Donoso inferred to talk about the different offenses or masking that is subject to the common man. In this sense, the mask of Manuel Gonzalez at the entrances to Manuela offers some reflection. Well, this action occurs as the living response to the constraints of human life, to face what this is horrible and intolerable. Transgression is the attitude of one who has the consciousness of a reality that surpasses it, can not bear, who can not watch without tearing eyes, is the tragic vision of the world, this allegorical vision.
masks or violations, say most of the real condition of the world, the meaning of existence, that an action to take communion or trade, what man has. Essentially, this is allegory: articulate a possible sense although his stick out to each story a new ruin.
The allegory does not point directly at the man or the story is. The that allegory does is reflect: reflect on the state of affairs of man, warning that the heart of reality is pure tension, pure denial and destruction.
3. A limited reading
The place no limits is a story: the story of a people, the history of the characters in her own circuit. Place Unlimited is the story of the same story. For it is the very last of each of those living in the Station El Olivo and fail to reconcile and redeem ningún futuro.
Si la obra de José Donoso es una historia, no goza en ser una historia lineal o progresiva, sino una de ruinas que se levantan unas sobre otras: es una historia de descentramientos, decadencia y tristezas.
La Estación El Olivo es el lugar donde transcurre la obra. El Olivo es lo opuesto a la ciudad o a su referente más cercano, que es Talca. Esta última goza de crecer en el progreso tan añorado por quienes, de algún modo, han vivido bajo los crueles embates de la pobreza. Si Talca significa mirar el progreso de la modernidad, El Olivo es el olvido de la misma, es mirar de regreso todas las acciones que se enroll in the premodern world.
If ever El Olivo was in the plans of any senator or deputy, to become a village where residents hope for a better world itself was the key to progress was not achieved, the power of Could those who exercised more against than in favor. The station is now a miserable hamlet of central Chile, men who have lost hope and, therefore, live in permanent losses and no possibility of change. The entire town is buried as a dense autumn leaves slowly covering each of their homes:
"Poplars stirred . If the wind grew stronger, the whole town would be invaded by the yellow leaves during a
week at least and women would spend all day sweeping them everywhere, on roads, corridors, doors and even under the beds, to join them in piles and burned stumps ... between collapsed walls and roofs of grass and blackberry devouring the rooms of abandoned houses ... a long time that all the coopers, blacksmiths, dairy and barns, Talca moved their business "(20-21).
But on the Station El Olivo was slowly turning around to become a cemetery, there was a place that desdecía of the center. The ultimate place to offset Station El Olivo is the brothel. Retrieve all the significance of the place is the justification for this center, where men come to release all your frustrations and repressions lived. It's where men come to drink, dance and be seduced by the caresses, dances and songs of La Manuela, a woman, the whore, the homosexual, reñidamente fighting between his life and die a better life.
If we can make the relationship between El Olivo and the brothel, we can postulate the following statement: the brothel for El Olivo is like wurlitzer to the same brothel. El Olivo suffered a total runout in its development, by establishing a place of celebration and hope in the heart of town. Somehow, the brothel emerges as the place of the expected modernization of El Olivo, such as wurlitzer to the brothel. The device would mean the arrival of electricity to the people and the economic consolidation for the brothel. Japonesita, daughter of Manuel Gonzalez, Manuela, expect only the news that "as electrified the people, work at home on Wurlitzer" (43). But the electricity never came despite the purchase of wutlitzer . Therefore, the expectations with respect to any sign of progress or modernity are sunk in dismal failure. El Olivo is their story that sinks slowly through the leaves and berries, while the brothel ends with the last breath that the last candle goes out there. Japonesita, and without the public used alone,
"... closed the door with the latch. Rubbing his hands walked off the tables, one by one, the Chonchon ... came to his room and into his bed without even lighting a candle " (134).
The brothel, the place seemed to be created by a god consisted of "seven dirty tables, where men left their smell of sweat, machine oil and cheap cigars" (16). Seven tables, as the same building in seven days. But nothing seemed to suggest that this place would be the work of a god, because it most resembled the descent into hell;
"The house was sinking. One day he realized that the ground path was no longer the same level as the floor of the room but higher and held with a table edge supported by two wedges. Over the years, who knows how, almost imperceptibly, the sidewalk level continued to rise while the living room floor, perhaps both spray and imprisoned to serve for the ball, went down " (19).
history that identifies each of the characters in The place no limits not far from the same story that describes the Station El Olivo. tears, sorrows and contradictions are the features that surround the ruined lives of Don Alejandro Cruz, Pancho Vega, Japanese, her daughter Japonesita and Manuela, who give life to this particular place without boundaries.
Don Alejandro Cruz and Senator Don Alejo is in the region. Don Alejo is who represents power, the oligarchy at Station El Olivo. This condition is of the senator of a divine image to the common people. Don Alejo plays to build and destroy people's identity and those who live there precisely because he is like a god
"Here in the town is like a God. He does what he wants. All you afraid. Do not you see that you own all the vineyards, all as far as we can see both?. And it's so good that when someone offends you, as it was bothering you, then forget and forgive. Is it good or do not have time to worry about people like us "(72).
As we saw above, Mr. Alexander had the responsibility to promote the progress of the people. The electricity was significant in this project: was to allow a people accustomed to seeing in the dark, could see the light, or else, people who listen to phonographs hoarse, could expect to feel the sound of a modern wurlitzer.
But the winds of thrown by Don Alejo divinity is not enough to discover its hidden side. If Don Alejandro was a god, what was it mode behaves like a real demon. The ability to dominate the souls of those around him, allowed a man and a woman or rather a homosexual and a woman or two women, one male and one female, could give the taste, "forming plastic boxes" for all those present at that time in the brothel.
all started with a bet that Don Alejandro does to the Japanese. Was that she had to bring the excitement of the Manuela to completion of intercourse. The performance of this plastic box, would allow the Japanese to ask Don what he wanted Alejo:
"_Ya is. Since you so nice person creís bet you do. Try to get the pussy to warm you. If you get warm and make you macho, well, then I'll give you whatever you want, what I ask. But it must be watching us, and we make plastic boxes "(80).
While giving effect to the commitment, intimacy of Manuela, the fag was not enough to endure so much misery, did not understand the steps that the Japanese had chosen to achieve power. All is dark again, the loss of the self, identity thrown into the gloom, the squalor of others who watched, while the smells of the merged bodies the pain of that plastic box:
"... and that smell was lit in my body and clung to me, the smell of the body ducts, and caves unimaginable, unintelligible, stained with other liquids, populated by other cries and other beasts and the boil so different from mine, my body lain doll, no depth, all mine out, useless, dangling, as she stroked with your mouth and your palms wet, his eyes closed so terribly that she did not know was happening inside, open all the way inside, passages and ducts and caves and me there, died in his arms, in your hand that is ungiéndome to live, Don Alejandro and the others laugh at us, hear what I say it quietly Grande Japanese ear, mijito is rich, not be afraid, if we do not do anything, if it is pure comedy ... and his voice warm and stained with wine kept saying, if it is for the house, just for the house ... she likes to do what you're doing here the sheets with me. I like that I can not, with anyone, tell me yes, Manuelita nice, tell me never to any woman before me, I am the first and so I can enjoy my beautiful, my soul, Manuelita, I like your body terrified ... the poor Japanese Grande believed to exist but does not exist and never existed despite the fact that I touch and caress me ... No dear, Manuela, like we were two women, look well, you see, legs intertwined, sex sex in the two sexes equal ... you are the woman, Manuela, ... I'm the butch female ... you and I sleeping on her, she whispers mijita, mijito. "(103-105).
After this, Don Alejandro is shown that more than one god is a demon or, rather, a demon disguised as a god, a god transgressed. The Japanese managed to become the manager of the brothel and a faithful follower of political most notorious of the people coming to belong to the same political party, the traditional historic match, order and decent people, no debt, no fuss, people who went to the brothel to have fun and " whose faith that would make great gift Alejo things for the region was so unshakable (66), like hers. Had so much faith, that just won the brothel as the owner, felt that the people would go up "and me and the house with people" (83). The Japanese, dazzled and blinded by the new status granted by Don Alejo, never questioned its procedures, she preferred to be always the woman who aspires to retain the favor and privileges the local warlord.
The dependency ratio to Don Alejandro and the breakdown of this vital tension was suffering Pancho Vega. His childhood was in charge of Don Alejandro Cruz and his family who supported him in education and training. A goal came affection for Pancho Vega at times it was used for entertainment for your daughter, with whom he had fun playing with dolls. Events like this made the soul of Pancho was waking up so much ingenuity lived next to the Cross. It's the same brother, Octavio, who will later insist on real Pancho who is Alejandro Cruz:
"Do not be so innocent, he realized that the old man had never been worried about the power of the people, it was pure fiction, to the contrary, it was fitting that the people will not ever electrified. Do not was innocent, that the old was a macuco ... wants everyone to leave the village. And because he owns all the houses and if not all, it costs you catch a habladita the mayor for leasing the land will the streets were his to begin with then tear down all houses and plow the land of the people paid and rested, and plant more vineyards and more as if the people never existed ... "(96).
Pancho Vega will never break their dependency. Bear the anger of an old debt to Don Alejo leads to impulsive acts, full of pain, anguish and bitterness, leading the truck he had bought with the help of the feudal lord:
"Then Pancho because, because he was angry because he was afraid, started honking like crazy and the dog jumps scratching redouble its red paint, very careful, but it did not matter, no matter now more than touch, touch, to bring down the palm trees and oaks and through the night side to side so that there is nothing, touch, touch, and the dogs barking in the hallway while the lights turn on and light up figures from the bags and under the doors, yelling at the dogs, running toward the truck, but Pancho stops, have to follow the dogs without obeying the call laborers "(90).
Pancho dependence is something insurmountable, but for the emergence of Manuela. In the brothel , Pancho, like many others came to the scene to break with all its repressions, all the reasons that made him an underdog, a man almost without being one. La Manuela is seen by the same Pancho as an element of salvation. Given the very Adversity can not break anything of his past, he flees to a brothel. In the place, dancing, wine, song, are the elements that contribute to the total delivery of Pancho to the seductions of Manuela. She dances and writhes before him, who no doubt follows suit, releasing his hidden homosexuality.
Pancho Vega manages to leave the village. Talca will become a small entrepreneur. On the road that runs along the tracks will never want to walk again, he wants to go further, to go to other things. Do not want to return, he wants to go ever forward:
"Leaning on the handlebars, Pancho searches the dark because if you do not have to search it plunges like a channel or grafted onto the blackberry. Each stone of the road you have to look at it, every bump, every one of these trees I was leaving for Always. I thought it was here with my tracks, and then when I wanted to think in these streets where I come in, they will no longer exist and I will not be able to remember because they no longer exist and I did not come back. I do not want . I want to go to other things, forward "(96).
Pancho go knowing that he could not break the ties that bind Don Alejo. Pancho Vega is about knowing that Manuela, "the Crazy Manuela could save" (121). La Manuela, that crazy that everyone could hide his history.
La Manuela is the central character of the work. Is the one that has to do with all these characters are treated, Don Alejo, Japanese and Pancho Vega. Perhaps the best representation of the novel or story Place unlimited s and Manuela.
From outside comes a character to insert into the life of El Olivo. It was always pilgrim who ran away from home to learn that his father would beat him for having been caught with another boy. Then he lived with a woman who taught English dance. Hence his life would go from house to house, from brothel brothel. Perhaps these elements of its history, meant having to take a deep look at the history of solidarity with others:
"In a whorehouse to another. ... I remember since I was a house in another ever since it kicked out of school when he was caught with another boy and did not dare to come home because his dad was with a huge whip, with which he came to draw blood to the horses when falling, and then went home from a lady who taught English dance. And then she threw him out, and others, always from house to house, without a five pockets, nowhere to hide and rest ... "(84).
Thus, we find the Manuela with a unresolved past, a lost origin, with a story that makes the whip father started to hide and take refuge in another whip, Don Alejandro Cruz, who, abusing his eccentricity, made the victim of his sordid pleasures.
La Manuela loses his own identity in order to take charge of their history. La Manuela is Manuel González Astica. Manuela, thus becomes a fag, homosexual and the whore of the place. That despite poverty, despite all the misery surrounding them do not hesitate to be the soul of all parties organized in the brothel, do not hesitate, despite their age, to be the local artist:
"Old would but would die with the feathers put ... If the party was made up and begged a little, did not cost anything to get the feathers but it seems scarecrow and had nothing to do with his dance number English. To make people laugh, nothing more and laughter surrounding me and I cherish and applause and the congratulations and the lights, come to take with us whatever you want dear, whatever you want, for us to dance again "(16-17).
Like most people, Manuela also establishes dependency relationships with Don Alejandro. For her, the landlord is the one who can protect the local men who want to harm, is the only hope of becoming a star, a true artist, a wonder. For Manuela Don Alejandro is hope:
"... and there is hope even for a crazy and ugly like me, and then unfortunately it was a disgrace but could become a wonder, thanks to Don Alejo, I promise that things can be wonderful, singing, laughing and dancing in the light every night forever "(85).
so as Manuela, to be an angel for Don Alejo, he becomes a fallen angel, used and transformed by the unlimited powers that the landowner had for his supporters. The aforementioned commitment made to the Japanese, shows those "plastic box" how the identity of Manuela becomes almost unbearable torment:
"But swear Japanese anymore, yuck God, swear, members, of course, but this is not anymore because now there is that you, now that I am needing so much, and I would draw from this corner of the coop, while viewing dancing in the living room "(105).
From that came the Japonesita bet, a scarecrow, a hybrid, a woman who does not menstruate, and that is delivered, as heir to the brothel, to keep accounts, like a machine, to deposit the money in Talca and establish there the purchase of some benefits, as was expected wurlitzer. Japonesita understand that your life has been slowly dying with the people, that needs to be committed to another human being to overcome the loneliness that kills, to be reborn and discover the richness of human existence. Finally, he decided to give Japonesita Pancho Vega, forcing it, have it succeed, but that night run blood. In Japonesita violence find something to beat the cold, lonely winter. Japonesita, this virgin, frigid and mannish, will stress the identity of Manuela Manuela because the father does not want to be a father, but only Manuela:
"What Dad: Do not make me laugh, please see that I have chapped lips and it hurts when I laugh ... Dad. Leave me alone, no dad. Manuela no more, you can dance till dawn and have a laugh at a room full of drunks "(105-106).
vital tension between what is and what is not revolves around the Manuela, as you may tour around all the inhabitants of El Olivo and the people themselves. The radical disorientation is the keynote of the work as history but as each character must bear its history. This is what happens with Manuela, after dancing and seduction, wants to escape, go somewhere else to continue the celebration and why not redeem the lives of some of those who were there. But such action was overblown, because the homosexual condition itself betrays Manuela any possibility of leaving. When you try to kiss Pancho, it reacts violently denying such behavior, especially his brother being involved. La Manuela is discovered as it is: Manuel González Astica. Is terrified to be the one and only escape is to don Alejandro could save him from this situation:
"Stop in the mud of the road while the paralyzed Octavio twisting his arm, Manuela awoke. No era of Manuela. It was Manuel Gonzalez Astica. Him And why was he going to hurt and Manuel González Astica felt terror ... Don Alejo, Don Alejo. He can help me. His word that these broken enough to be given to the right ... You promised ... to protect and defend and heal and comfort ... "(124-125).
But the divinity of Don Alejo (which was beyond the limit of the street and people beyond the limits of the same story the same Manuela) could not save them from punishment and beatings given by Pancho and Octavio Vega:
"Octavio, or perhaps it was Pancho the first, hitting with fists ... maybe they were not only men who entered the default and found him and rushed upon him and kicked him and beat him up and twisted, gasping for he hot bodies writhing on Manuela and I could not scream, the three viscous mass one ... united the three by vomiting and heat and pain there in the grass, looking for who is to blame ... "(126) .
The ferocity and violence or by Octavio Pancho are perhaps the violence of the father of Manuela while waiting for his prodigal son with a whip. It is perhaps the same whip, silent and stealthy that Alejandro Cruz hidden in his being a good god, a demon of unpredictable actions. It's the same violence with which the Japanese acts to fulfill the commitment of Don Alejandro. It is the violence of the Manuela to deny his own paternity Japonesita. Violence is all in from the history of each "try to find who is to blame" (126).
P ut in this story are not guilty. Only those who attempt to go beyond the limit, as does looking Manuela Support Don Alejo, which is beyond the edge of town, or as Pancho Vega Talca flees without redeeming his own past, or the Japanese that the landowner accepts the bet for owning and stop being part of the easement the same man, or as Japonesita trying to save by buying the wurlitzer to the brothel and agree Pancho violence to assuage their loneliness, they have their own fault in not accepting that their own history is the place without boundaries.
As we said at the beginning of this chapter, The place no limits is the story of the same story or the story told by herself. Then, she is the limit. Limits will only be for those who want to escape the limits that the same story holds, or unlimited. Well, there will be limits to men, like the characters mentioned here, who want to escape their own history. The History Place is the place of each in relation to himself. The place of history is the history of each one: it is at that moment where she becomes Place unlimited.
But taking the story from the novel by Jose Donoso, the unlimited of the story is also in the inability of the characters redeem it. Every action is justified to save his own story,
she has tied to his ruin and the frustration of not achieving the remainder to the calm, quiet and prosperity it brings as possible becoming.
There is an element common to both views and that is that history is a place. First is a physical location such as the Station El Olivo, like the brothel, he begins to languish and sink beneath the autumn leaves, as a tomb, like hell. But since, the story also has the characters. And who best describes this decline to hell is Manuela and her, the rest of the characters.
La Manuela, losing their home, becomes a transvestite, an artist who dances and sings to avoid death penalty, but to be called father, refuses to be, coming later to be afraid of being Manuel González Astica. Manuela is the one who descends into hell by accepting the bet is placed by Don Alejo offered the Japanese. The first looks like being, for his magnanimous goodness, a god, but his unlimited power over others makes him a barbarian, to be unable to save the beating Manuela given by Octavio and Pancho. The Japanese do not want to be a servant of the people she wants to be sold to brothel owner of the aforementioned commitment. Pancho Vega, who was never able to break the dependence on Don Alejandro, looking to redeem himself with the caresses of Manuela, flees to Talca, wanting to forget everything not redeem anything. Thus, the characters are left to their own development, seeking a new opportunity to redeem his history, his place, his identity is slowly sinking into the most unlimited of hell.
So Japonesita, end of story, end up closing the last door, putting a stick, as saying that The place without limits is impossible exit. Turning the last candle, the last Chonchon the brothel, go to his room to get to bed without a candle, to be in complete darkness, as darkness of the people buried in the bushes and leaves in autumn.
The place no limits is the infernal, hell who will redeem the story is in itself, to exist as if there was redemption and be redeemed, as the place that everyone is and is not, in which our existence unfolds his identity to be.
4. As a culmination
Finally, I think the invitation to relevant reading. A further reading and other boundaries from José Donoso. Read each of the characters in The place no limits is beginning to read, because reading is reading. But read to the extent that the very existence, become incomplete. Incomplete to the extent that there is again a musical fugue, to name or write that identity is missing.
N or is what we need to be, is what is simply reading from the float. Is the character that comes from reading other characters, looming as the bridge between self and history. It exposes the character the tension between the ruins and progress. As shown the angel in the painting of Paul Klee, we find ourselves in the same fall. But as we fall, a new voice is constructed and how, as a history, an entire culture and all stocks can fit in it.
Beyond a certain truth, the literature of José Donoso in The place no limits , forces us to become, as delirium. Dancing, singing, seducing as Manuela is to understand the rhythm of history, such as delirium. The more self-denial, the more he discovers his property and the history that is debate among ruins yy progress of falls.
Bibliography
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Adorno, Theodor. Negative Dialectics. Trad. Jose Maria Ripalda. Madrid: Taurus, 1975. [Links ]
Benjamin, Walter. The Origin of German Baroque drama. Trad. José Muñoz Millanes. Madrid: Taurus, 1990. [Links ]
Benjamin, Walter. Dialectics suspended. Fragments of History. Trad. Pablo Oyarzun. Santiago: Lom, 1999. [Links ]
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Achugar, Hugo. Ideology and narrative structures in José Donoso (1950-1970). Links ] London: Centre for Studies Rómulo Gallegos, 1979. [
Cerda, Carlos. Donoso without limits. Santiago: Lom, 1997. [Links ]
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